Тема 4 (2): meaning and polysemy

It is generally known that the bulk of English words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of individual word meanings, or lexical semantic variants (ЛСВ или лексико-семантический вариант слова — the term was introduced by A.I. Smirnitsky). The ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy. The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of elements that constitute its semantic structure, the more polysemantic the word is. Word counts show that the total number of meanings separately registered in New English Dictionary (Oxford) for the first thousand of the most frequent English words is almost 25,000, i.e. the average number of meanings for each of these most frequent words is 25. The actual number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a hundred. Monosemantic words are comparatively few in number, they are mostly scientific terms.

The semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings  which is determined both by the number of meanings and the types of the different meanings it has. The objective of lexicology is to establish and describe the interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings within the framework of the same word.

Let us analyse the semantic structure of the noun fire as reflected in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

1. The conditions of burning; flames and great heat: She is afraid of fire

2. A piece of gas, or electrical, apparatus for warming a room, with the flames or red-hot wires able to be seen - compare STOVE

3. A heap of burning material, lit on purpose for cooking, heat, etc.: to sit round the fire / to light the kitchen fire

4. Destruction by fire: insurance against fire / the danger of fire in an old wooden house

5. A case of destruction by fire: lost during a forest fire

6. Shooting by guns; firing

7. Strong feeling and excitement: The boy is full of fire and courage

Meaning 1 conveys the concept in the most general way whereas meanings 2-7 are associated with special circumstances, aspects and instances of the same phenomenon. Meaning 1 has logical links with all other meanings and hence presents the centre of the semantic structure of the noun fire holding it together. Meanings 2-7 can be associated with one another, some of them exclusively through meaning 1 (meanings
6-7), meaning 5 through meanings 4 and 1 (cf: burning ® destruction by fire ® a case of destruction and burning material). Meanings 2-7 are dependent on meaning 1 and subordinate to it.

Semantic structures of different polysemantic words may be arranged on different principles. The system of meanings of any polysemantic word develops gradually involving the appearance of new meanings and the loss of old ones. It is essential to have a mechanism of its analysis. There are two approaches to the study of polysemy.

Polysemy viewed diachronically is the historical change in the semantic structure of the word resulting in disappearance of some meanings and/or in addition of new meanings and in the rearrangement of these meanings in its semantic structure. Historically we differentiate between the primary (or original) meaning and secondary meanings. The relation between primary and secondary meanings is not only one of order of appearance, since the secondary meaning is in most cases derived directly from the primary meaning. Thus the meaning which appeared later is not only a secondary meaning but a derived meaning as well — dependent on the primary meaning and subordinate to it.

Synchronically polysemy is defined as the coexistence of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development. The main problem is to establish whether all the meanings in the semantic structure of a word are equally important and to grade them in order of their comparative value. Here the opposition is formed by the major (or central, or basic) meaning of the word and its minor (peripheric) meanings.

Some linguists hold that syncronically there is no objective criterion to single out the basic meaning, for two or more meanings of the word may be felt as equally ‘central’ in its semantic structure. Other linguists interpret the concept of central meaning in terms of the frequency of occurence of this meaning. The meaning which has the highest frequency is the one representative of the whole semantic structure of the word. Whereas the basic meaning occurs in various and widely different contexts, minor meanings are observed only in certain contexts.

No general or complete scheme of individual meanings has been so far accepted by linguists. The following terms reflecting various points of view may be found with different authors: direct or nominative meaning:: figurative meaning when the meaning nominates the object in isolation and when the object is named and at the same time characterised through its similarity with another object. Other oppositions are abstract::concrete; narrow::extended; general::particular. In each of these cases the basis of classification is different, but the comparison takes place within the semantic structure of one word.

The meaning or meanings least dependent on context are usually described as free or denominative meanings, e.g. baby is ‘a very young child,’ nose is ‘the part of the face or head just above the mouth’, etc. The meaning which is dependent on lexical context is sometimes referred to as a phraseologically bound meaning, while the meaning dependent on syntactical context is referred to as a syntactically (or grammatically) bound meaning. (The problem of context is treated in more detail in the following paragraph).

Polysemy and semantic structure exist only in language. Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every particular case context (i.e. the environment of a word) cancels all the unnecessary meanings arid makes speech unambiguous.

The polysemantic nature of a word is indirectly proved by the number and variety of lexical and syntactical distributions in which it manifests itself. Polysemy is also discoverable through an examination of the nature of synonymic and antonymic groupings characteristic of a given word.

There is also a connection holding between polysemy and the morphemic structure of words. As a rule, the simpler the morphemic structure of a word the wider its range of meanings. Compound words are practically monosemantic. Due to the monosyllabic character of English and the predominance of root words polysemy is more characteristic of the English vocabulary as compared with Russian.

An examination of different parts of speech in English from the point of view of semantic variation reveals that verbs and nouns are characterised by a wider polysemy than adjectives and adverbs. Stylistic factors should also be taken into consideration in determining the development of polysemy in words.

The semantic structure of a word is a flexible category - the relations between the major and minor meanings are liable to change. Historical changeability of the word semantic structure may be illustrated by the semantic analysis of the word revolution. The word appeared in ME (1350-1450) denoting ‘the revolving motion of celestial bodies’ and ‘the return and recurrence of a point or a period of time’. Later on it acquired other meanings: ‘a complete overthrow of the established government or regime’ and ‘a complete change, a great reversal of conditions’. In ME the meaning ‘revolving motion’ was both primary and central, in MnE the arrangement of meanings in the semantic structure of the word revolution has changed and the most frequent meaning ‘a complete (social) change’ has become central.

Words which coincide in their major meanings in twodifferent languages are normally referred to as correlated words. As a rule, polysemantic words of different languages are correlated in some of their meanings only. The  actual meanings of polysemantic words and their arrangement in the semantic structure of correlated words may be altogether different. To illustrate the arbitrariness of the semantic structure let us compare the semantic structures of the Russian noun ‘ключ' and its English counterpart ‘key’.

1. Металлический стержень особой формы для отпирания и запирания замка. Запереть на к. Подобрать ключ к кому-н. (перен.: найти подход к к-н.). 2. Приспособление для отвинчива-ния или завинчивания гаек, откупоривания, завода чего-н. К. для часов. Гаечный к. 3. перен. То, что служит для разгадки, понимания чего-н., овладения чем-н.  К. к шифру. К. местности (господствующая позиция. спец.) 4. Знак в начале нотной строки, определяющий значение нот (спец.) Скрипичный к. Поэма написана в поэтическом ключе (перен.: звучит оптимистически). 5. Верхний камень, замыкающий свод сооружения (спец.)

1. An instrument, usu. made of metal, for locking or unlocking (a door), winding (a clock), tightening or loosening (a spring), or starting and stopping (a car engine). 2. Any one of the parts in a musical instrument, or in a machine, that is pressed down to produce the desired sound or other result: the keys of a piano / a typewriter 3. Something that explains, answers, or helps you to understand: a key to the grammar exercises / to the secret writing / (fig.) Her very unhappy childhood is the key to the way she behaves now. 4. A set of musical notes with a ceratin starting or base note: played in the key of C / a song in too high a key for the singer (fig.). The book is not very exciting; it is written in a very low key from beginning to end. 5.  A seed of certain types of tree (such as the ASH and ELM), which has winglike parts to help it float through the air.

 

The central meaning of both words ‘a metal instrument for locking or unlocking’ is to a great extent identical. The meanings ‘something that explains or helps you to understand’ and ‘ключ, разъяснение, разгадка’ may also be described as identical. The shade of meaning  ‘тональность, стиль речи’ overlap. At first sight the meaning ‘приспособление для отвинчивания или завинчивания гаек, откупоривания, завода
чего-нибудь’ appear similar with ‘an instrument for winding, tightening or loosening’, but the British use the words spanner and wrench for Russianгаечный ключ. The meaning ‘замковый камень свода или арки’ is also rendered by the English compound word ‘keystone’. The difference is more pronounced if we consider the meanings not to be found in the semantic structure of the Russian word ключ: клавиша; клавиатура; бот. крылатка (плод ясеня); or the English word key: скрипичный ключ - treble clef.

To sum it up it should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language.